According to the data supplied by the Ministry of Public Works, the number of cruise passengers visiting the Canary Islands has reached 1.4 million up until July, which represents an increase of 10% compared to the first seven months of last financial year.
Furthermore, the Ministry of Public Works highlighted “the growth experienced by island destinations above the national average and in particular, the Canary Islands, which have now reached 24.7% of the total passengers arriving at a Spanish port”.
Together, the 46 State-owned Spanish Ports, or so-called ports of general interest, have received a total of 5.65 million cruise passengers in 2,227 ships, that is an increase of 5.3 per cent as compared with the same period of the previous year.
According to the information of the Ministry of Public Works, the ports located in the Mediterranean are still the “main focal center for cruises in Spain” as two out of three cruise passengers, that is 66%, arrived at one of the ports on our coasts, reaching more than 3.7 million passengers in total.
“It is not surprising that Barcelona with 1.6 million is the main port in Europe and together with the Balearic Islands account for more than 82 per cent of the cruising traffic in the Mediterranean coasts of Spain” they explained.
A national historic record is foreseen for the end of the year 2019
The strong performance seen in island destinations has also been observed in some of the other ports in the Atlantic, particularly in A Coruña (+12.4%) and the Bay of Cadiz (+13%), which help us foretell that 2019 will end once again with a new historic record and will probably surpass the figure of 10.1 million reached in 2018”.
The President of the State-owned ports, Mr Salvador de la Encina, has stated in an official statement that, according to the last data published by Eurostat, the passengers who started or ended their trip in one of the Spanish ports (those considered as base ports) were a total of 3 million, which makes Spain the second country in Europe, only behind Italy, with 3.7 million.
Its impact on local and regional economies
The President of the Spanish ports has also pointed out that “even though the impact that the cruising traffic has on the profit and loss account of our port system is just a small contribution, its significance for the local and regional economies is becoming more and more important, as it creates a great number of indirect jobs, apart from being an important incentive for tourism-related sectors”.
In this regard, it should be noted that according to the last data provided by the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), the direct contribution of this sector to the Spanish economy reached 1,481 million euros in 2017, 12% higher than in 2015, which resulted in the creation of 31 233 direct jobs.
Seatrade Europe
With all this knowledge, a large representation of the Spanish port system, led by Mr De la Encina, will attend the main cruise fair held in Europe: Seatrade Europe, which this year will take place in the German city of Hamburg from 11 to 13 September.
In the fair, all Canarian ports will be represented under the stand of Cruises Atlantic Islands and also the ports of Bilbao or Tarragona.
Spain, for its part, will be represented by its own stand under the “Ports of Spain” brand and with the slogan ‘Blue Carpet’ and they will roll out their “Blue Carpet to welcome all visitors”.
Source: El Día